Source.—The Times Special Supplement, 31st December, 1912—a Review of the Year 1912.

Mr. Borden's main proposal was that a sum of £7,000,000 should be voted at once for the construction of three armoured ships of the latest and strongest type. These ships were to be built in England and placed at the disposal of the Admiralty, subject to recall at a later period should the permanent naval policy of the Dominion require it. To show their origin they were to bear Canadian names, and they were to be additional to the programme of construction already laid down for next year's Navy Estimates by the First Lord of the Admiralty. In order, meanwhile, that naval shipbuilding should make a start in Canada, yards were to be established for the construction of certain cruisers and auxiliary craft which the Admiralty engaged to order from the Dominion. A very important step towards closer consultation in matters of policy was, moreover, announced in the appointment of a Canadian Minister to the Committee of Defence. This Minister was to have the right of being present at all meetings of the Committee, which would thus be brought much more closely in touch with the Dominion Cabinet. In the course of his speech, Mr. Borden also read out an extremely lucid and well-worded Memorandum on the growth of foreign navies, with which he had been supplied at his own especial request by the Admiralty.

The main effect of the Memorandum was to show the increasing concentration in home waters demanded of the British Navy by the swift expansion of the German Fleet and the consequent reduction of Imperial naval strength in all outlying seas. The statement was an eloquent corollary to a suggestion thrown out by Mr. Churchill on May 16 at a banquet of the Shipwrights' Company. The First Lord then urged that, while Great Britain made herself responsible for the security of the Empire in the central European theatre, the Dominions might combine to patrol the outer seas. This argument was strongly developed by Mr. Borden in the course of his speech; and, though it has not been repeated by Mr. Churchill, it is likely to exercise a very important influence on the development of opinion on the naval question in the Dominions. Mr. Borden's proposals were received with enthusiasm in this country; but Liberal critics showed a tendency to question the constitutional propriety of the addition to the Committee of Defence, and to complain of the cost of manning and maintaining ships which were to be strictly additional to those already demanded by the Admiralty. The latter line of complaint, though never at all widely urged, received some reinforcement from Sir Wilfred Laurier's speech a week later. The Leader of the Opposition supported, as we have already said, the vote of £7,000,000; but he moved an amendment to the Bill proposing that this sum should be devoted to the construction of a Canadian Navy, to be manned and maintained entirely by the Dominion. It was added that the ships proposed should be built in the Dominion and should form two separate fleet-units, one on the Atlantic and one on the Pacific Coast. Sir Wilfred Laurier also took occasion to reiterate a view formerly expressed that Dominion ships should not take part in any Imperial war except upon a vote of the Canadian Parliament....

It would, however, be leaving the most significant part of the event untold not to record the profound impression which it has created throughout the Empire. The gift of the Malay States had already roused a strong wave of Imperial sentiment when Mr. Borden delivered his speech. It is no exaggeration to say that the Canadian initiative was hailed with fervid enthusiasm everywhere. Opinions differed in regard to the details of control, but there was only one voice regarding the main proposal of three first-class ships. Great attention was, moreover, given to the announcement that a Canadian Minister should in future be regularly summoned to the Committee of Defence, and the opinion was freely expressed that in the proposal lay the germ of a much closer future union in foreign policy and defence.